Mastering the Basics – The “Cinco” Tips of Twitter Likeability

This past week I came across a couple of articles and webinars offering tips on how to be more interesting and likeable on Twitter. I thought it may be useful to collect them and share them with you adding my own twist. Ready? Here we go!

“Uno” – It’s a link economy! Are your links sexy enough?

In a webinar at Hubspot Guy Kawasaki explained that Twitter is a link economy. In other words, you should be linking early and often. Consistent sharing or original interesting content is always better than tweeting someone else’s content. That’s how you become a thought leader online. Make sure that your titles are delicious recommends Guy. Now if you haven’t had the time to invest into creating original content then it’s OK to share interesting content from others, but include in your tweets a comment on what got you sharing it in the first place, instead of just copying and pasting the article’s title. Good sources to find relevant interesting content are Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Alltop and SmartBrief. Finally, remember to track your links’ CTR with tools like bit.ly to see how interesting your content was to your followers. If they clicked, then keep using the same cologne; if they didn’t, then go easy on it next time or change brands, or change the tone of your voice.

“Dos” – Don’t be shy, but don’t be obnoxious either

OK you want people to follow you but you don’t really participate in the conversation so why should they? Twitter has limits on how many people you can follow so if you don’t really tweet often enough, some users will take you off their feeds so they can follow someone else more interesting using programs like Tweepi, a clean-up tool for Twitter. On the other hand you don’t want to tweet uncontrollably, because you will probably end up annoying your followers when they go to their feeds and see that you tweets are taking over 50% of their screens. The advice is, It’s good to tweet often but don’t overcrowd your content.

“Tres” – Asking questions is great, but don’t overdo it

We all have heard that asking questions is a great way to get people engaged, but when most of your tweets include a question, it just seems too desperate and it can even make you look amateurish. When asking questions, the focus should be on quality, not on quantity. A great way to recognize what works for you is by analyzing your replies. For example, see which questions got your followers engaged. Remember, keep them engaged but without sacrificing your credibility by asking too much.

“Cuatro” – Don’t use auto-DM. People can tell the reply is not authentic

I was researching the auto-DM feature on Twitter and came across an article on the topic that made me think twice about using this feature with my own account. The typical use of an auto-DM is to send a “Thanks for following, check me out on Facebook too” type of message right after someone follows you. As a social media marketer it seemed like an attractive feature, however as a private tweeter I’ve always disliked it. Somebody actually started a poll about the topic and 88% of the participants so far voted that they don’t like to get auto-DMs as you can see below.

When people go to check their DM’s on twitter they are looking for what the feature is for “direct messages” and not spam. If someone is interested in checking out your Facebook then they will probably go to the link in your account and go from there to find you on other social networks.

“Cinco” – Keep your content consistent & you will be followed and listed

I preferably like to follow accounts that have consistent content. For example let’s say someone regularly tweets about social media tips, I’ll follow them and put them on my social media list feed. However if I start noticing that an account in my social media list is tweeting too much about cats, dogs, or how they just cut a finger cooking and they are bleeding, I’ll probably put them in my out of topic list which I haven’t created yet. Also try to keep long conversations out of your public tweets, perhaps this may be a good opportunity to make a better use of the DMs than putting the Auto-robots at work.